


Liminal

by GleGeal



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: sparktober, F/M, Fix-It, Halloween, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16511624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleGeal/pseuds/GleGeal
Summary: Almost two years after Elizabeth was lost on Asuras, John and the city are preparing to return to Pegasus while celebrating Halloween on Earth.  But Samhain is older than John knows and for this one night those who were lost might return.





	Liminal

**Author's Note:**

> A little Sparktober ficlet for my OTP of OTPs.  
> First time posting anything anywhere, so please don't judge too harshly. Never over how this ended. Have been reading fic forever now and wanted to try to write my own little fix-it as a thank you to all the great people who've kept this ship afloat.  
> Sorry its a little late!

John wandered away from the revelry, out onto their old balcony. Behind him the Halloween party was in full swing, their people enjoying a last holiday before Atlantis left Earth behind to return to the Pegasus galaxy. The doors ghosted closed behind him, cutting off the sounds of the celebration, leaving him to the quiet chill of the autumn evening. The lights of the two cities, Atlantis and San Francisco, reflected in the mirror calm surface of the bay. Breathing in the crisp air, he leant against the railing and tried to clear his mind enough to return to the party for another couple of hours before he could safely call it a night. 

He’d forgone a costume, claiming that as the newly minted expedition leader he had to maintain some level of decorum. It was the same excuse he’d given to his team for begging off movie nights and meals in the mess. But being honest with himself, he didn’t feel like celebrating anything or spending time on the mundane talk and planning associated with their imminent departure to another galaxy: ever since their new orders came through two weeks ago, he’d felt himself on a knife edge. Reality felt liminal, on the verge of some deep change that was going to turn his world upside down again. Command of the city was bittersweet, but gave him some small measure of control: he was going to renew the search for Elizabeth and this time, he was going to bring her home. 

One year, eleven months, and seventeen days since Asuras. Almost two years of shock, and grief, and finally feeling numb enough to function only to have the wound ripped open to cycle through it all again. And again. John didn’t believe in ghosts. Didn’t really believe that a machine with someone else’s face was really Elizabeth. If he had he’d have dragged her back from the gate, moved heaven, hell, and two galaxies.. But..  
He’d been desperate at first to believe it was true. Desperate to believe that she had come back to them (him). Finally. After everything that’d happened in the last five years, he could never believe she was truly gone. Didn’t they deserve one more miracle? Carson had returned. Ford was out there fighting the good fight. The reports from SG-1 had Jackson dying once a fortnight so why the hell..? John forced himself to not go down that road again, released his death grip on the rail, and tried to breathe through the wave of agony thinking about Elizabeth out there alone brought. 

He had failed her. Oh, he knew well the look Elizabeth would give him for that one; claiming it was her choice, that she had made the sacrifice so their city would survive and to keep their people safe from the nanites in her system. But deep down, he knew he had failed her. How many times had he insisted that they don’t leave people behind? How many times had he gone off on some hare-brained mission to rescue one of their people? And yet, he had left her there. In the hands of one of their worst enemies. And never gone back. And he had never understood why…

Every time he’d tried to plan, scheme, or just steal a jumper and go after her something had gone wrong, or the city needed saving, or a clone turned up to tell him he was too late. But he couldn’t accept that. Never would. Not until he knew for sure, until he had seen her one last time. In almost two years the ache hadn’t faded. He still expected to see her, on the balcony, on the walkway when he returned from a mission, in her office. And now, technically it was John’s office. Woolsey had been recalled by the IOA, and although John had grown to not hate the guy, he hadn’t wasted a moment before sneaking some of Elizabeth’s old mementos back onto her desk along with his own. The command staff seemed to consider it his tribute to her and hadn’t called him out on it. 

Shortly after their defeat of the hive ship and landing on Earth, Lorne had insisted on organising a memorial service for those who’d given their lives for Atlantis. John had attempted to write an eloquent eulogy for Elizabeth, but words were her strong suit, and his had fallen flat. All his pent up emotions kept threatening to spill over onto the page. In the end he’d convinced Teyla to speak for her at the ceremony and played the role of stoic soldier. His team and the old guard who’d known Elizabeth since Antartica had seemed to find comfort in it and move on. But John couldn’t. He’d heard the stories from old air force buddies about family who somehow knew when a person was gone and those who’d been adamant their loved one was still alive, and proven right. That was how he felt about Elizabeth. Now that he was in command he would finally have control of the search for her. He was jittery and keyed up to get back to Pegasus and get to work. Perhaps if he could slip by the crowd he could get a start on his mission planning now before he turned in for the night. 

Taking a final deep breath of the cool night air, John was just turning back to the door when a ripple of light off the East Pier caught his attention. The water seemed to shimmer, and for a moment the surface seemed to show not the reflection of the city’s towers but the reflection of a summer country with a vast city in the distance… And then just as suddenly it was gone, and only a lone figure remained. 

“John!” 

John felt eerily calm. There was a woman standing on the surface of the water just off the edge of the East Pier. From this distance she was no more than a tiny figure but he knew with utter certainty that she was Elizabeth. And she was calling out for him… He had to have lost it, finally snapped, he was under a lot of pressure, he’d just been thinking about her, longing to see her. She couldn’t have just appeared out of thin air. 

“John! Please!”

But why not? Far stranger things had happened. Why couldn’t this be real?

“John, can you hear me? John!” 

He didn’t want to fight this. If he was going to drown, hers would be the last face he’d see. Her voice was in his mind, like a selkie call, luring him to the water. He could feel her smile in his heart as he slipped from the balcony, waded quickly through the sea of revelers and dived into the nearest transporter.

John felt strangely light as Elizabeth’s voice drew him as if on the air out along the Pier to its furthest edge. The apparition waited just beyond. This close, he could make out every familiar feature of Elizabeth’s face. Her blue eyes sparkled like the surface of a wormhole, eerily bright and infinitely deep. He could lose himself in her eyes forever. She was dressed in Ancient style clothing, with a vaguely Celtic look. She appeared to glow in a light that fell only on her as she stood on the calm surface of the ocean and beckoned him closer with a smile that tore at his heart, holding out her hand for his. 

Without hesitation, John reached out to grasp Elizabeth’s hand and pull her onto the Pier. That same spark he felt every time they touched raced through him, and he knew that this time she was real. 

As Elizabeth’s feet touched the metal of the city, the light around her faded and her presence became more natural and warm.  
“Well, I’m home.” Her gaze held his as her arms wound around his neck.  
“Yes. Yes, you are.” His smile was sunlight as he tugged her close. Elizabeth pressed her face into his neck and clung tightly to him.  
“I’ve missed you so much, I had to see you...”  
“I thought I’d lost you. I’ve been praying for this for so long...” 

Time faded into her warm breaths as they held to each other in the quiet. John felt as though the broken pieces of his soul were melding back together as her warmth seeped into him and they drifted. 

After an eternity, John came back to himself, and with a sudden bark of laughter and a burst of energy jumped back into command mode - “We need to get you to the infirmary, have Beckett check you out, they’re going to go crazy over this! Did you just Descend? Rodney’s going to go nuts when he hears! Everyone’s going to be so happy to see you, ‘Lizabeth” The old endearment felt good on his tongue, but the sudden euphoria ebbed as he felt Elizabeth hold back and slip from his embrace. He felt bereft. 

“John, please just listen: our people, they can’t know that I’m here,” Elizabeth looked devastated.  
“What?? But you’re home!” She had to be, he couldn’t do this again.

“Only for one night.”

The cold threatened to shatter his soul. Elizabeth managed a weak smile, and John instinctively pulled her close again.  
“After you left, after I was captured.. The Replicators tried to extract information from my mind. But Oberoth was more interested in torturing a human as revenge against their creators. I held them off as long as I could. Made contact with the rest of Niam’s group; tried to teach them about Ascension. They promised to help me escape but Oberoth made copies.. He rather delighted in telling that story.” Her voice wavered, but then she set her jaw and continued. “When our ships launched the attack that destroyed Asuras I tried to make contact with you. But the Ancients interfered.. They wanted me dead so they made sure you wouldn’t know that I was there.. They tried to keep me from Ascending so I couldn’t escape, so I’d die on Asuras.. But then I wasn’t alone anymore, there were Others. The Danann. They helped me to Ascend, shielded me from the Ancients and the Ori, and brought me back home to Earth.” 

John felt a knot of cold rage mixed with despair grip him, “You were there? You were still alive?”  
But Elizabeth seemed shaken by the recollection and John lowered his voice to the tone he had always used to comfort her. “And you’ve been partying on Earth since?” he joked. She gave a weak nod, brushing her hand along his forearm in a gesture he’d ached for.  
“Just the last month since Asuras… John, it wasn’t your fault, you believe me on that don’t you?”  
His eyes met hers, “I should have gotten you out of there, I should have had Rodney scan again..”  
The odd timing of her stay on Earth slipped his mind as the self-recriminations rose up.  
“It wouldn’t have mattered, John, the Ancients wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“I’m sorry.”

All of his guilt and sorrow and anger and helplessness swirled up out of the depths to pull him under. But Elizabeth could always see right into his soul and she grabbed his other arm to compel him to look at her. 

“You’re forgiven.”

Her eyes spoke of her loss and pain and freedom and acceptance. Her joy. Her trust. God, but he’d thought he’d lost that, had planned to spend the rest of his life earning it back if only he could have the chance..

“This is real.”

Elizabeth smirked at him, quirking her eyebrow, “You expect a straight answer from a semi-Ascended being?” John huffed out a laugh.  
“Yeah, I guess not. So. What are we going to do?”  
“We have until sunrise”  
“That’s not enough time.”  
“I know. But I can’t stay in Atlantis John. The Ancients control the city and most of the Milky Way. Earth is the only neutral ground. The birthplace of their civilisation, their home..” 

She gently guided them towards the lights of the towers.  
“The Alterans weren’t just one society, there were many different cultures, just like us. With vastly different philosophies about how to interact with other species, especially the younger races. When they ascended the divisions only got deeper. John, the Ascended are at war! It’s a cold war, a proxy war, and we’re the pawns on their ideological battleground. The Ancients and the Ori have been fighting for aeons - like you and Rodney with that damned game - while the Others look on. They’ve engineered whole races and doled out technological advances just to prove a point.”  
John shook his head, “But they don’t interfere, they punish any Ascended who do!”  
Elizabeth’s hands slid down to grasp his and he intertwined their fingers.  
“The Ancients only punish those who interfere with their plans. They manipulate outcomes, protect their favourites.. Do you remember how we used to laugh about you having a guardian angel..?”  
John felt queasy but tried to cover for it by giving her his best puppy dog expression, “You’re saying I’m one of their favourites?”  
Elizabeth chuckled impishly, “Did you ever doubt it?”  
He grinned and squeezed her fingers, his expression sobering, “And that you aren’t?”  
“No. No I’m not. I’m one of the Danann,” she whispered.  
He ran his thumb over her knuckles.  
“Who are they?” 

Elizabeth sighed, ‘Probably the largest faction after the Ancients and Ori, from what we now know as the Celtic lands. They didn’t want power, didn’t want to influence the younger races, so they remained here, used their technology to hide away, cloaked or phased. Most eventually ascended too, but remained close by. Watching over the new wave of humans, rarely interacting. They have a deal with the rest of the Alterans: they can only interact at certain times and places. Samhain was their greatest festival, when they’re free to return and roam the Earth… Sometimes they’d take people then return them to teach others to counteract the influence of the other Alterans.“ 

“So if you Descended, you’d be one of those, and they’d let you stay!” John rationalised.  
Elizabeth’s eyes clouded, “Then Ancients would only try to kill me again.”  
“God! Why!? Why would they want to hurt you?” he demanded.  
“Because I’m not supposed to be here!” she exclaimed, “I’m a Changeling, John! I was left to grow up here to circumvent the non-interference clause, because the Danann were tired of letting them get away with it! But when I got involved in the program, the Ancients began to realise what I was, and they decided I needed to be… removed from the game.” 

John was stunned. It was too much to process all at once. Everything he’d been so sure of about his life in Atlantis was suddenly overturned. And just like before, Elizabeth was at the heart of it. He couldn’t be sure of anything except Elizabeth, and how he felt about her. As if she knew she was his anchor, she ran her hand along his cheek. “It isn’t all bad,” she smiled, “You should see what I can do with Alteran tech these days.” He managed a watery grin, “Oh yeah? Like what?” 

The deep sparkle reappeared in her eyes, “Like this!”  
Elizabeth moved forward and grabbed him tight and suddenly space was twisting in on itself and unbending and they were in Elizabeth’s old quarters. John wobbled on his feet and she braced herself against him to keep him from falling. “Different form of psuedo-wormhole teleportation. Like the first time through the ‘Gate, takes a bit of getting used to.”  
“You don’t say!” The dizziness was passing but John was reluctant to let her go, “That’s one hell of a parlour trick. Way beyond what we can do. I’ve never even sensed a system close to it in the City.”  
“You weren’t meant to.”  
“Oh.”  
Elizabeth slipped away and drifted around her old room, running her fingers over the surfaces and picking up her old trinkets; the photo-frames, the old pot he’d gifted her with.  
“This is.. Complicated…” she refused to meet his eyes, her expression torn. “I didn’t come here to disrupt your life, John. I wanted to close this chapter, make peace with it, I don’t want to upset the balance for you, I…” she trailed off uncertainly.  
John closed the distance between them, “Why did you risk coming here? The truth, ‘Lizabeth.”  
Their gazes locked, “To see you… To tell you...”  
All the old feelings welled up inside him, spilling over; desire, need, lust, love… All reflected back at him in Elizabeth’s eyes. One night. If that was all the time they had. All the time they would ever have…  
John leaned forward, placing a delicate kiss on her mouth. Chaste and sweet, feather light. Elizabeth whimpered softly. And there was nothing else, just the two of them. The warmth of her fingertips slipping under his shirt. His hands buried in her hair, holding her close to him.  
John urged her steps back towards her old bed, holding on tight as they fell together. 

\----------

The first gray light of dawn broke their quiet reverie as the sat on the floor of her room, wrapped in blankets and each other, looking out over the city and the old familiar stars.  
Elizabeth exhaled softly, “It’s time.”  
Turning slowly, she placed a gentle kiss on his lips, pulling away reluctantly and forcing herself to leave their cocoon of blankets to don her clothes. John followed her, mechanically dressing in his standard issue uniform. 

He couldn’t keep doing this. Suffering for the cause like a good soldier. Couldn’t keep on fighting and surviving and trying to keep their city afloat without her. He needed more. These last few weeks he’d felt a sea change was coming. That something had to give, like sand shifting beneath his feet. He’d thought that meant his being given command of the city and having the power to search for her as he’d always wanted.  
But Elizabeth had found him. Turned his world upside down and given him a taste of the life he’d been dreaming about for so many years. 

And now that he’d had a taste, he couldn’t live without it.  
“I’m coming with you.”

Elizabeth spun round to face him, her expression guarded and a denial on her lips. But he knew her so well, could glimpse the hope and longing in her eyes, underneath her diplomatic mask.  
“I left you once before, ‘Lizabeth. I let you go. That’s not gonna happen again.”  
“John,” she murmured, “if you come with me, I don’t know if the Ancients will ever let you come back.”  
Not even an attempt at an outright refusal, John thought, and his heart ached with how much she’d had to carry alone, how much she longed for him to come with her.  
Taking her hand, John slowly entwined their fingers together, “More crazy Ancients? We’ll handle them like we always have. Together.”  
Elizabeth’s eyes shone like the stars, “Deal.” 

“They’ll wonder where you are!” Lifting her other hand, a data crystal appeared in her palm. “The next liminal time is Imbolg, three months from now on February 1st.” John took the crystal. “Just think about the message you want to leave and it’ll imprint.” He thought through a quick explanation for his team, and as an afterthought added a rather sarcastic resignation letter for the SGC.  
“Really?” Elizabeth quirked her eyebrow again, and it was insane how much he’d missed that, “We’ll be leaving the diplomacy to me in future!”  
John’s heart was light as he placed a quick kiss to her forehead and gave her his best devil-may-care flyboy grin, “Does that mean I get to fly the cool ships?”  
“Well, we do have a few that survived...”  
“And I get a promotion to general right?” John smirked placing the data crystal back in her palm and watched it disappear. “Its on the desk in my old office, they’ll find it easily enough.” Elizabeth smirked right back at him, “And angling for another promotion so soon Col.?”

John wrapped his arms around her as Elizabeth glanced towards the window where the dawn was just breaking on the horizon.  
“Last chance?” The mischievousness drained from her face and the anxious look returned.  
John held her close to him and whispered into her ear, “Not leaving you, ‘Lizabeth.”  
The dappled otherworldly light he’d first seen her standing in at the Pier returned, and the world twisted once more, more strongly this time. Atlantis faded away as they held fast to one another, the summer land appearing around them. A warm breeze carried on it the scents and sounds of the City in the distance… 

\---------

Lt Col. Lorne was the first to realise that their new expedition leader was unaccounted for the next morning when he missed their scheduled security briefing. When Rodney and Radek’s internal scans showed no sign of John, or any unusual ‘gate activity, a full city-wide search was conducted. It was Ronan who spotted the odd data crystal on the office desk, and for a moment when he first touched it he could have sworn that he held a letter from Sheppard talking about leaving with someone… But then it was gone, and Rodney sniped that the decorative paperweight was blank and that there was no way he could have seen anything anyway. The return to Pegasus was delayed pending a full investigation. 

Time passed. No evidence of John’s whereabouts were found. His team moved on, Teyla and Ronan chose to return to Pegasus, while the city and her Tauri inhabitants remained Earth-bound. Rumours grew and faded. The city’s population seemed to forget that two of the expedition leaders were now MIA, and settled into Caldwell’s new militarily precise routine with seeming ease. 

The loss of the city’s two most influential leaders faded into memory and the years, and then the decades, passed…

\---------

John awoke to dappled sunlight streaming through the window and the familiar warmth of Elizabeth sleeping, safe in his arms. Only a few short months had passed but he couldn’t even remember what life had been like before she had come back to him.  
Slowly, Elizabeth’s eyes opened, her gaze falling on his. She smiled lazily up at him and ran her fingers through his messy hair, happily distracting him for a while. 

“We need to get a move on if we’re planning on making it to Atlantis before Imbolg ends. Let’s go see our city!” she smiled impishly.

John grinned at her, “Let’s go take it back!”


End file.
